A Solitary Reckoning: Instant Coffee and IKEA
by Sallie A. Walker
Summary: Replacement for my Ouran fanfic, Bittersweet Faith. Haruhi feels her time for judgement has been long overdue, and so severes her affair with Kyouya. But in the end, is an empty existence with Tono all that better?


A/N: This story is a "one-shot" remake of Bittersweet Faith, which I personally favor more than the original. I have to warn the indigenous, new, and returning population of Fanfiction(dot)Net that there "is" a flashback within a flashback in here, beginning along the lines of "_And then, the dejection of that moment would shamelessly reveal back to another"_, ending with the line "___"Each" time. "Each" that was already..._ ...from the mental gutters". I understand that this story is a little more complicated than the last and may be a little hard to follow, so go ahead and post your questions in the review and I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.

Disclaimer: Bisco Hatori can't sue me.

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_**A Solitary Reckoning: Instant Coffee and IKEA**_  
Sallie A. Walker

Haruhi could feel Kyouya's still, lonely presence standing alone in the room, like an abandoned pillar of salt. Yet, it was the first thought, the start of this white beginning and utterly black ending of this affair that pierced her heart as she closed the door to his residence.

Somehow in the sorts of this situation, messy, commoner breakfasts in his kitchen full of high-priced IKEA appliances seemed all too warm and familiar. And, quiet evenings in his bed listening to radio orchestras... enjoying the setting glow of the sun. Not to mention the tranquil comforts of his arm languidly clutched about her middle, nor the slow, warm breaths that caressed smugly at her neck.

At the morbid, all-too-sensible age of twenty-seven, she wasn't sure anymore if it was the distinct pine for those kindly murdered visuals, or the cruel acceptance of them that made her decisive descent from those memorable heights all the easier.

Her hand twitched in rebellion when it moved mechanically to press the button for the ground floor.

The elevator orchestra sounded deaf to her ears.

Location was an unquestionably personal factor when it came to any admiration for pieces by Hirano Yoshihisa.

There was this dinner party, Haruhi vaguely recalled.

A bright and fortunate girl's engagement. A triumphant groom's celebration.

Hers. And Tamaki's.

They had in the beginning agreed to invite the entire Host Club, as a fair enough tribute to the warm, distant memories. Calls were made, by the servants. She had volunteered, almost adamantly to make them herself. Tamaki shrugged them off with an iced margarita as he told her he was booking seats for them. Another of his favorite orchestra performances.

Haruhi only agreed, because she knew his slow, vibrant smile of delight and approval would be hers before and after the show.

In the end, three of Yoshihisa's glorious performances were admired from their private box.

The only Host Club member to show up was Kyouya Ohtori.

As a most reliable business associate (that their former economic rivalry would have) and an assuredly treasured friend from their school days, Tamaki vouched to make his call himself. This was what Haruhi remembered and cursed under silent breath as she dialed in the Shadow King's number a week or two later.

His coolly dependable voice and disdainfully humble manner seemed to ironically reach out and console her, even from the cell.

"_Haruhi, are you crying?"_

Which may've been a positive aspect for her later, as she wept another of her bitter moments in the shameful privacy of her own office. Yes, it was the one in their mansion. Her rented office was closed at the moment—for "personal renovations".

It was unspoken fact that Tamaki would decide its supreme re-design, production, and actual finance. What _was _naturally spoken of during this process was the lack of considerable tact (on her part), comfort and warmth (also hers), and the cool discomforts in witnessing irrational human display (shared by both). She had merely thought to stand up for her own office management, so to speak.

Miraculous wonder then, when their bodies, thought, and breath intermingled as one those nights between their desperately separate heartbeats. But of course, they were _affianced_.

Amidst the pleasant digression on cruel reality, the elevator had reached ground level, her heart functions had begun a normal, working routine, and her mind had just discovered her Shadow King by the nostalgic bar at the dinner party.

"_A memorable night, then."_

_Just twenty-five, and in love—Haruhi agreed. His studious eyes poring _much_ too reverent_ly _over her dully-animated features, her own glanced away rather quickly at something less potent.  
_

_And she supposed the glamorous overkill of that night simply influenced an "em_**pha**_sis on the wrong syl_la_ble"… because she couldn't read her own expression or check the blush rising on her own cheeks (dammit)._

"_Yes it is, isn't it."_

But rhetoric wasn't an invited guest at this evening reception.

Not tonight…

_At that time, Kyouya was still "caught in the throes of bachelorhood", as he so sardonically put before he downed a glass of rich wine. She shook off a gratuitous smirk that they both shared in the moment, and decisively called for a glass of mead herself. Business was good, and so was the properly aloof profile in the cold, economic world. For once, the Shadow King didn't question the need to make a note on hers. Probably kept too much of them anyway, back when they were in school._

_That's what Haruhi read in _that_conversation, anyway. It wasn't like she didn't stumble upon a little black book all alone, herself, one day after club activities._

Just as her hand reached inside the cellphone pocket of her purse, she chose a more comforting proposition. Calmly aware of those three-inch heels clicking against the pavement, Haruhi turned her booted feet towards the sidewalk.

She needed a good, long walk.

_More because of the lack she felt in her spirit than of anything else in the moment, the warm alcohol and his coolly inviting charm sucked her in._

_Some aloofness was comfortable, but not enough. A bit was fine, but the impending mischief amid further glasses of wine and mead was rather tempting. Elbows leaned forward, dark eye used to an impervious cold turned desperate, and complacently poor, chocolate pupils met them in a similarly indecent hunger._

_They silently agreed through the rich, flowing conversation—that if they hadn't done anything publically rash yet, this could still escape in a discreet limo back to his place._

_But chauffeured, of course. Memories of this were blurred by alcohol, but the threats and tips that followed were more than gracious._

_So was the night that tangled them among the sheets, warm body heat, the hazy, vocal bliss and clearly unspoken wants that left them exhausted the next morning._

And as they fell back asleep, the next awakening sweated itself to its fullest conscience. Before long, that early, warm hour of untouched bliss had already faded into an unsettling hour of noon. Whose bed was she in?

Ah. So desu-**ka**…?

_The 'Oh, Shits' were comfortably shared over expensive mugs of yes, _instant_, coffee in his kitchen. _

Haruhi sprinted across with strenuously dire sophistication while braving the downtown city crosswalk.

_Strangely,_ _the details that seemed most clear to her now, was the way they made their own coffee. Hers first—not too much black coffee, with two organic sugar packets from the drawer. Milk, or its substitute, was always a liberal ingredient._

_Kyouya had wordlessly prompted her to take her mug, before him. There was this peacefully-tinted goodness in it, for all the midst of the morning's chilly emergency. Had the Tono already noticed? What was she going to say? But all was still clear, and the way Kyouya's quiet eyes watched Haruhi's (nervously) quirky but deliberate movements with a most earnest, perceptible care… she still hadn't figured him out._

She mistakes the wet drop on her cheek for rain, and glances up beseechingly at the humid clouds overhead. The overcast sky gave her no fluid ounce of sympathy.

Even the gods decided…

_This_ Fujioka Haruhi "still" deserved to hold on to her bitingly raw emotions.

As long you don't spill anything on my wood floors, you can rush, _or so he had said in his first waking statements. And yet, while watching his ample, calmly measured spoonfuls of dark, caffeinated powder, she could only find excuses to steal a minute longer in this lovely and generous space she didn't have any rights to._

_He only put one packet of sugar, Columbian, by the looks of it. And stirred it in with a methodical beauty… first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Haruhi had observed all this with a delighted interest that surprised even herself._

It seemed like forever, the short fifteen minutes of that morning. Of course, she didn't know if she would have any afterlife after those moments spent in eternity.

So Haruhi worshipped the grace of each and every second.

When the heavens decide to act, piety still seems a terrible waste. Let alone righteouness.

She and practicality were the only stranded islands, always left. To deal. Deal… and _deal_.

_A consoling kiss was luxury left behind, as the pre-condemned lawyer anxiously fiddled with the gaudy keychain on her cell to call Tamaki's butler. Even in the static frenzy of such a moment, it clearly resembled a small, plastic bear._

_Its stoic black eyes caught her breath in trapped, guilty sentiments._

_And then, the dejection of that moment would shamelessly reveal back to another. The endlessly refined mirrors reflecting her wretched, tear-stained face within the pathetic escapes inside the woman's room. The irrational spectacle in front of her was just as bad as the one back at the table where Tamaki, her maid of honor, and the wedding planning was still underway and waiting for her to rejoin. As an upright, respectable lawyer, Haruhi felt demeaned._

Tono _knew all was well for himself, as long as he let himself wait long enough to see past the storm of woman's euphemism and emotional debate that took itself inside the woman's room. After all, one was never late to tea, much less willing to wait out a dinner for the wedding planning. Nothing but the untouched ootoro still sitting on her plate could stop her ever-curious defiance and bring her back to their table._

_Supposedly then, it made sense, when it came back to simple, sliced, and raw matters like that sitting in their dishes. This astute woman of law felt the figurative shattering echo of glass and hope as she exited the woman's room and the closet stuffed full with all the skeletons she and Tamaki have made love to. She suppose she had to. In a light-hearted joke heavy as the tombstone, it was, after all, just for the ootoro._

_But it felt like counterfeit bribery. As a lawyer, she could at least recognize that. Still, there was one too many of these with her relationship with Tamaki, and each time she felt she gave more into the bargain that she could not get back._

_("Each" time. "Each" that was already one too many times for her to count, and every sobbing, inward _cry_ from the mental gutters.)_

_It was only self-gracious to be mindful of these self-abject things, when she arrived at the manor later that afternoon with her dishonest apology for going MIA in last night's party, voiced too embarrassingly _loud_ for the congenial parlor. After all, what else was there to be done for a law-bearing conscience full of imminent disgrace?_

_And she waited for the gavel._

_Really, because it was all she could focus on, it was his wine glass of matured, oak mead that portrayed her missing chains of accusation from his laxly pleasant speech. No fun, no service was esteemed enough from yesterday night's engagement party... it was dull enough. Did she enjoy herself? _

_Should he have missed anything, it wasn't her story to tell._

_All was well._

A bear from a bakery sign above smiled omnisciently at her. Taking the cue, she paused by the wall over to it, panting, wishing for lower heels the rest of her way home. There was difficulty in this break, when she could just walk straight to her doom, but she knew should be rehearsing her entire story for her client. Tamaki deserved the best told truth from the worst told story. Abject, yes, dismal, she was, but those moments of pity and nostalgia were over. The skeletons belonged in the closet, and she belonged to—. She, she, she—

_I am a lawyer. I know how to argue my facts. But who _is _my client?_

The rain began to patter around her boots, water cascading from the awning above.

_His glasses glinted on the IKEA bedside table, and Kyouya emerged by the doorframe to the kitchen… coffee in hand, and bleary eyes gently focused. He spread a smile in exquisite slowness, in special rarity, and seductive invitation…_

The glint from a beer bottle shard woke her from her reverie… and she squinted.

_It is no more, no less, than the truth. That is my client._

Because in trial after trial, she was still a woman in love with spectacles.

She re-toted her bag, and headed back. The other direction, at last.

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Review.

_To Lynx Tiger:_

Thank you for noticing my sheer laziness of not posting Author's notes. Thanks to you, they're up now. As in the notes, this is definitely a remake of Bittersweet Faith. I decided to make this a little more wordy and elaborated (on respects such as "why" on earth Haruhi would possibly choose the cold, reclusive Kyouya instead of the heartwarming, rambunctious Tamaki). And I like that thought of a lone tree-but the pillar of salt stays ;). It's cause I have the idea of "betrayal" written all over Kyouya, whether it's Kyouya's part as the best friend, or Haruhi's part in betraying Kyouya-if you refer from the bible, Lot's wife turned into salt because she betrayed her God and looked back at the burning city of Sodom. I appreciate the thought, however.


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